The further and continuing adventures of the girl who sat in the back of your homeroom, reading and daydreaming.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

I Am Joe's Slinky-Cat's News Paper

So, my subscription to the local paper ran out and I missed the notice, mailed as it was in the same envelope as all their other "sign up for eternal automatic payments and we'll luuuv you forever" whinings.

Paper stopped showin' up, I called, learned the Awful Troooth, renewed online the next day (I think -- it took three tries just to get my e-mail address updated), and waited. Paid for a year in advance. That was three days ago. Still no paper.

Called this morning. No humans in that department (they come strollin' in about ten and depart all dog-tired at five -- wanna bet it's an hour lunch, too?) but the automated system tells me, "Your account has a hold placed on it." No why or wherefore past that.

Yeah, good job, Indianapolis Star & Pravda (no, that's unfair, Pravda is a good little scandal sheet these days). Dog-gone it, I've got a little cat here that dislikes peeing on the freebie papers! (Too much color on the page, we think).

9 comments:

I have come across your blog while surfing in google. You have a wonderful blog. I liked the variety of content you have shred with the readers through your blog.

We have an IQ test site with all PhD certified IQ tests, Aptitude tests and Personality Test (http://www.3smartcubes.com/). If you like the content of the site and the tests, can you please place a link at your blog.

Don't feel abused by the Indy paper. It's endemic to the industry. I used to have to cancel my Denver Post subscription every year because they would kick the price into the stratosphere. Wait a week and resubscribe to get the original rate back. Dallas Morning Fishwrap is equally inept. Raised to $60/month last fall. Cancelled and re-instated for orginal rate of $38. Suspended delivery for a vacation only to return and find my neighbor had politely stacked two weeks worth of papers at my back door.

But at least the news is slanted, limited and whiningly liberal...

Yeah, and no one shreds my content with me either nor do they offer to test my IQ, aptitudes and personality. Maybe they don't think I have any?

The Indy Star is a Gannet (French for gooney bird, byproduct of the bird, the main product of "newspaper," guano) newspaper and the actual subscription processing department is almost certainly in some remote location.

Devils Lake, North Dakota is a likely choice for Indy. Or it may be in the same place the dozen area Ganney papers is in, New Iberia, Louisiana.

It usually takes a week or two for the mailed notice from Subscriptions to get to someone paying attention at the actual production site. Until then it's Schultz city. "I know nozzing."

Newspaper rates? I collected two cents a day for throwing the Oklahoman seven days a week during WWII. And got to keep a nickel of that. 52 subscribers, so I made more than the guy pumping gas at the Cities Service.

True story. Really. As a paperboy, I had to get the customer to provide a "reason for stop" on the little weekly collection page/receipt/customer account dealie when a customer stopped delivery to hand in to the circulation manager. I had more than one "bird died" or "mutt finally house-trained" on my Syracuse Herald-American route back in the day.

"I saw to what extent the people among whom I lived could be trusted as good neighbors and friends; that their friendship was for summer weather only; that they did not greatly propose to do right; that they were a distinct race from me by their prejudices and superstitions."